#30 The Rope Bridge

"Two months? That's impressive! The last thing I did that took two months to finish was pulling the stumps out of my front yard," Hanley said.

I shook my head at his comparison. "Do you really think pulling stumps and making a rope bridge out of native grasses are comparable?" I asked. "That bridge is over 100 feet long and can hold up to twelve people."

"Hey, if you ever tried to get a project done around my house, you'd call it even. It's like a Twilight Zone circus on speed. It's full of surprise laced with terror followed by regular intermissions of Tourette syndrome and manic depression."

"Hey, no one ordered you to have six kids," I said. "You produced your own freak show!"
We both laughed. Our guide, Coatl looked nervously back and forth between us. I don't think he had any idea what we were laughing about but he did his part to look amused.

We found Coatl, (pronounced Kwa tl) in the village at the base of the mountain. After a long boat ride upriver and a three hour trek inland, we rested our bones in Coatl's village. We drank some local fruit beverage and tried to cool off. A foolish hope during daylight hours in the tropics.

A man trying to sell us trinkets spoke a fragment of English. We got him to understand we needed a guide to see the old temple on the mountain. That's when he left and returned in seconds with Coatl.
"This guide, he Coatl. Coatl mean serpent. He find right paths, true paths even during night with no moon. Good jungle man. A bargain, too."

Coatl smiled wide. His dark face framed a gaping mouth with more empty space than teeth. Straight, ebony hair bordered his bony jaw and forehead. He spoke some words in the local dialect and motioned for us to follow him. We paid the merchant and fell in for our march.

I had to agree with the merchant. The price was right and Coatl got us moving at a brisk pace on a sound trail. Around mid-afternoon we rested at a long, narrow rope bridge.

"I see the temple from here," Hanley said, pointing to a stone structure erupting from a sea of trees. Only the uppermost portion of the ancient building rose above the trees. It still projected an impression of great mass. Thousands of jungle tribesman sweat, bled and died to build this temple.

"Hey, Coatl. How long before we reach the temple?" Hanley said.
"No much. No much," Coatl said, looking eager and excited.

"He understood you perfectly, Han. I thought he didn't speak a lick."
"So what? He knows the meaning of time. Big deal."
"I wonder what else he knows," I said.
"Forget it. The way he moves we'll be back at it soon. Save your energy."

Hanley was right. Sort of. In about five minutes Coatl disappeared. We called for him. Nothing. We started talking about heading back though it would be very difficult in a few places without him. The sun was already slipping toward the horizon.

"There! Look at that!" I shouted. The tail of a huge snake slithered into the undergrowth. We didn't see the whole snake but it was huge. Our minds both raced to the same conclusion. "Coatl!"

We shouted his name over and again only to see him calmly walk out of the bush, his less-than-toothy grin right where he left it. Only this time, I noticed a pair of long, curved fangs hanging down from Coatl's gums. My eyes widened in shock. And as though he sensed my awareness, the fangs receded, becoming shorter and shorter until they disappeared completely! Coatl closed his lips but the smile persisted.

I looked at Hanley. He missed it. I panicked.

Our guide looked back over his shoulder and began to laugh. Rustlings sounds came from the jungle where the snake disappeared and Coatl re-appeared.

I thought about trying to get back to the village. Instead, I did the opposite. I gently wrapped an arm around Hanley's shoulder. "When I say so, run across the rope bridge, follow me across. Whatever you do, don't stop. You follow me?"

Oddly, Hanley didn't protest. He said "OK, whatever you say." A very un-Hanley response.

A cone of silence descended on us for an awkward moment. So then I yelled, "Run". And we ran across the rope bridge for the first and the last time in our lives.